“And I just would take my oath,” said Janet, “that they’re all away back by that train. Ye needna speak to me of Sabbath-day’s journeys, and afternoon walks. The train, nae doubt, is a great easement. I ken a sooth face from a leeing one. They had far ower muckle to say about the pleesure of the walk. They’re just a’ away back by the train.”
“It’s not for you and me to speak, Janet, that have done nothing but deceive all this weary day!”
“Toots!” said Janet, “you were out, mem, it was quite true, and just very uncomfortable—and they got their rest and their tea. And I would have gathered them some flowers, but Mrs Bennet said she would rather no go back through the Edinburgh streets with a muckle flower in her hands, as if she had been stravaigin’ about the country. So ye see, mem, they were waur than we were, just leein’ for show and appearance—whereas with us (though I leed none—I said ye were oot, and ye were oot) it was needcessity, and nae mair to be said.”
Mrs Ogilvy shook her head as she rose up painfully from among the flower-pots. It was just self-indulgence, she said to herself. She had done harder things than to sit in her place and give her acquaintances tea; but then there was always the risk of questions that old friends feel themselves at liberty to ask. Any way, it was done and over; and there was, as Janet assured her, no more to be said. And the lingering evening passed again, oh so slowly—not, as heretofore, in a gentle musing full of prayer, not in the sweet outside air with the peaceful country lying before her, and the open doors always inviting a wanderer back! Not so: Robert was not satisfied till all the windows were closed, warm though the evening was, the door locked, the shutters bolted, every precaution taken, as if the peaceful Hewan were to be attacked during the night. He caught Andrew in the act of lighting that light over the door which had burned all night for so many years. “What’s that for?” he asked abruptly, stopping him as he mounted the steps, without which he could not reach the little lamp.
“What it’s for I could not take it upon me to tell you. It’s just a whimsey of the mistress. They’re full of their whims,” Andrew said.
“Mother, what’s the meaning of this?” Robert cried.
She came to the parlour door to answer him, with her white shawl and her white cap—a light herself in the dim evening. It was perhaps too dim for him to see the expression in her eyes. She said, with a little drawing of her breath and in a startled voice, “Oh, Robbie!”
“That’s no answer,” he said, impatiently. “What’s the use of it? drawing every tramp’s attention to the house. Of course it can be seen from the road.”
“Ay, Robbie, that was my meaning.”
“A strange meaning,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “You’d better leave it off now, mother. I don’t like such landmarks. Don’t light it any more.”